Book Report Inspiration: Cowboy Cookies!!!!

After writing about True Grit last week, it seems like I have Westerns on the brain. Add that to the fact that Melanie Blodgett of You Are My Fave instagrammed about monster cookies last week and the obvious result is cowboy cookies. As near as I can tell, cowboy cookies have no real connection to actual cowboys, but what cookies do?

Cowboy cookies will always remind me of our Aunt Eileen & Uncle Jim's house in Annandale, Virginia. The sisters and visited when I was about fourteen and our dad was working at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. We had cowboy cookies and Bigfoot pizza from Little Caesars.

Catherine came over today and saw the recipe card on the counter. She said: Cowboy cookies?! You're making cowboy cookies?! Yup, we get pretty excited about these things. (Note: this is not the original recipe, rather it's one Mom copied. The "2 3/4 cup sugar" should actually be "2 3/4 cup flour." What an awful mistake that would have been...)

Cowboy Cookies
3 sticks butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup + 2 TB packed brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2 3/4 cups flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups oatmeal
6 oz chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine butter, sugars, and vanilla. Add eggs and mix until smooth. In a separate bowl mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Combine wet and dry ingredients and mix until they come together. Add oatmeal and chocolate chips. Drop tablespoons of dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 9-10 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven when they're just starting to brown--they'll look a little doughy, but that's OK. Allow the cookies to cool for 2 minutes before transferring them to a wire cooling rack. Makes around 3.5 dozen.

P.S. I recommend a visit to You Are My Fav or Melanie's instagram: @youaremyfav. The caption for her monster cookie post read: Whenever I make monster cookies I think of the line, "if their date is half as good as these cookies, we'll be sisters in no time!" #partrenttrap2. How can you not love that?